“Poetry happens when the heart inspires and the head instructs” – Susan A. Katz
RESEMBLANCES
My dog kills rabbits; little
ones still nesting in warm
fur and brown grass; he stumbles
on them in the woods
behind our house and carries
them screaming like terrified
children onto the lawn; we try
to take them from him, but he turns
on us, his eyes growling possession,
his tongue heavy with fur
and blood, his thick liver-ticked
body trembling with the pleasure
of the kill.
For days afterward, I cannot
touch him, his eyes
follow me around the house, despairing,
he is only a dog, I tell myself,
knowing, it is not him I fear, but something
in him, that I see, primitive
and unthinkable that reminds me
of me.
Susan A. Katz